Wednesday 11 November 2015

David Virelles

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Though still only 32 years old, David Virelles has enjoyed a jazz career that many of his contemporaries would envy. Indeed, the New York Times has picked him out as one of the up-and-coming jazz pianists and composers of his generation.
 
Born in Cuba, he grew up in a family for whom music and life were indivisible. His father, José Aquiles, was well-known on his island home as a song-writer of the Nueva Trova--a politicized musical movement which flourished on Cuba in the nineteen seventies, while his mother played the flute in the Santiago de Cuba Symphony Orchestra. Immersed in sounds from day one, David Virelles started classical piano lessons when he was seven, but kept one ear tuned in to the musical traditions of his homeland. When he discovered his grandfather’s record collection, he fell in love with improvisation and caught the jazz bug.
 
Virelles’ compositions epitomize sensuality and mysticism. Ritualistic and exotic in nature, it is as though they are worshipping at the altar of sound itself. His orchestrations are often unconventional, while his music borrows from the Afro-Cuban idiom of his childhood, which he incorporates into contemporary jazz. The results defy categorization and reveal the powerful, multifaceted talent which makes David Virelles one of the most luminous rising stars in jazz.
 
PARALLEL EVENT at the OCC
Wednesday 11 November 2015. 21.00
After concert talk with David Virelles
Upper Stage
 
Full price: 18 euro
Information/Tickets: 210 9005800

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